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ABOLITION 



IN NEW YORK. 




SPEECH 

OF A 

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AT AN 

ABOLITION MEETING IN NETWORK, 

HELD MAT 11, 1847. 




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FOR SALE AT ALL, THE PERIODICAL AGENCIES. 






FLAMING 

ABOLITION SPEECH 

DELIVERED BY THE RUNAWAY SLAVE, 

FREDERICK DOUGLASS, 

At the Anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society, 

IN THE TABERNACLE, NEW YORK, MAY 11, 1847. 

The following Report will show to Marylanders, how a runaway slave 
talks, when he reaches the Abolition regions of the country. This pre- 
sumptive negro was even present at the London World's Temperance 
Convention, last year ; and in spite of all the efforts of the American 
Delegates to prevent it, he palmed off his Abolition bombast upon an au- 
dience of 7000 persons ! Of this high-handed measure he now makes his 
boast in New-York, one of the hot-beds of Abolitionism. The Report 
is given exactly as published in the New- York Tribune. The reader 
will make his own comments. 

"Mr. Douglass was introduced to the audience by Wm. Lloyd Garri- 
son, Esq., President of the American Anti-Slavery Society, and, upon 
taking the platform, was greeted with enthusiastic and long-continued ap- 
plause by the vast concourse which filled the spacious Tabernacle to 
overflowing. As soon as the audience became silent, Mr. D. with, at first, 
a slight degree of embarrassment, addressed them as follows : 

I am very glad to be here. I am very glad to be present at this Anni- 
versary — glad again to mingle my voice with those with whom I have 
stood identified, with those with whom I have labored, for the last seven 
years, for the purpose of undoing the burdens of my brethren, and has- 
tening the day of their emancipation. 

I do not doubt but that a large portion of this audience will be disap- 
pointed, both by the manner and the matter of what I shall this day set 
forth. The extraordinary and unmerited eulogies which have been show- 
ered upon me, here and elsewhere, have done much to create expecta- 
tions which, I am well aware, I can never hope to gratify. I am here, a 
simple man, knowing what I have experienced in Slavery, knowing it to 
be a bad system, and desiring, by all Christian means, to seek its over- 
throw. I am not here to please you with an eloquent speech, with a re- 
fined anilogical address, but to speak to you the sober truths of a heart 
overborne with gratitude to God that we have in this land, cursed as it is 
with Slavery, so noble a band to second my efforts and the efforts of 
others in the noble work of undoing the Yoke of Bondage, with which 
the majority of the States of this Union are now unfortunately cursed. 

be last time I had the pleasure of mingling my voice with the 
ay friends on this platform, many interesting and even trying 
evem occurred to me. Lhave experienced, within the last eighteen 

or twen x ths, many incidents, all of which it would be interesting 

to commit*. 3 to you; but many of these I shall be compelled to pass 
over at this time, and confine my remarks to giving a general outline of 
the manner and spirit with which I have been hailed abroad, and wel- 



corned at the different places which I have visited during my absence of 
twenty months. 

You are aware, doubtless, that my object in going from this country, 
was to get beyond the reach of the clutch of the man who claimed to own 
me as his property. I had written a book giving a history of that por- 
tion of my life spent in the gall and bitterness and degradation of Slave- 
ry, and in which I also identified my oppressors as the perpetrators of some 
of the most atrocious crimes. This had deeply incensed them against 
me, and stirred up within them the purpose of revenge, and my wherea- 
bouts being known, I believed it necessary for me, if I would preserve 
my liberty, to leave the shores of America, and take up my abode in some 
other land, at least until the excitement occasioned by the publication of 
my Narrative had subsided. I went to England, Monarchical England, 
to get rid of Democratic Slavery} and I must confess that, at the very 
threshold, I was satisfied that I had gone to the right place. Say what 
you will of England — of the degradation — of the poverty — and there is 
much of it there — say what you will of the oppression and suffering go- 
ing on in England at this time, there is Liberty there — there is Freedom 
there, not only for the white man, but for the black man also. The in- 
stant I stepped upon the shore, and looked into the faces of the crowd 
around me, I saw in every man a recognition of my manhood, and an 
absence, a perfect absence, of everything like that disgusting hate with 
which we are pursued in this country. [Cheers.] I looked around in 
vain to see in any man's face a token of the slightest aversion to me on 
account of my complexion. Even the cabmen demeaned themselves to 
me as they did to other men, and the very dogs and pigs of old England 
treated me as a man ! I cannot, however, my friends, dwell upon this 
anti-Prejudice, or rather the many illustrations of the absence of Preju- 
dice against Color in England — but will proceed, at once, to defend the 
Right and Duty of invoking English aid and English sympathy for the 
overthrow of American Slavery, for the education of Colored Americans, 
and to forward in every way, the interests of humanity; inasmuch as the 
right of appealing to England for aid in overthrowing Slavery in this 
country, has beencalled in question, in public meetings and by the press, 
in this city. 

/ I cannot agree with my friend Mr. Garrison in relation to my love and 
attachment to this land. I have no love for America, as such; I have no 
patriotism. I have no country. What country have I? The Institu- 
tions of this country do not know me — do not recognize me as a man. I 
am not thought of, spoken of, in any direction, out of the Anti-Slavery 
ranks, as a man. I am not thought of or spoken of, except as a piece of 
property belonging to some Christian Slaveholder, and all the Religious 
\and Political Institutions of this Country alike pronounce me a Slave and 
a chattel. Now, in such a country as this I cannot have patriotism. The 
only thing that links me to this land is my family, and the painful con- 
sciousness that here there are 3.000,000 of my fellow creatures groaning 
beneath the iron rod of the worst despotism that could be devised even 
in Pandemonium, — that here are men and brethren who are identified 
with me by their complexion, identified with me be their hatred of Slave- 
ry, identified with me by their love and aspirations for Liberty, id^ntifi^ 
with me hy the stripes upon their backs, their inhuman wrongs 
sufferings. This, and this only, attaches me to this land, and »i.e 

here to plead with you, and with this country at large, for ♦' nthrall- 

ment of my oppressed countrymen, and to overthrow /stem of 



4 

Slavery which is crushing them to the eaith. How can I love a country 
that dooms 3,000,000 of my brethren, some of them my own kindred, 
rtiy own brothers, my own sisters, who are now clanking the chains of 
Slavery upon the plains of the South, whose warm blood is now making 
fat the soil of Maryland and of Alabama, and over whose crushed spirits 
rolls the dark shadow of Oppression, shutting out and extinguishing for- 
ever the cheering rays of that bright Sun of Liberty, lighted in the souls 
of all God's children by the omnipotent hand of Diety itself? How can 
I, I say, love a country thus cursed, thus bedewed with the blood of my 
brethren? A Country, the Church of which, and the Government of 
which, and the Constitution of which are in favor of supporting and per- 
petuating this monstrous system of injustice and blood? I have not, I 
cannot have, any love for this country, as such, or for its Constitution. I 
desire to see it overthrown as speedily as possible and its Constitution 
shivered in a thousand fragments, rather than this foul curse should con- 
tinue to remain as now. [Hisses and cheers.] 

In all this, my friends, let me make myself understood. I do not hate 
America as against England, or against any other country or land. I love 
Humanity all over the globe. I am anxious to see Righteousness prevail 
in all directions. I am anxious to see Slavery overthrown here; but, I 
never appealed to Englishmen in a manner calculated to awaken feelings 
of hatred or disgust, or to inflame their prejudices toward America as a 
nation, or in a manner provocative of national jealously or ill-will; but I 
always appealed to their conscience — to the higher and nobler feelings of 
the people of that country, to enlist them in this cause. I always appeal- 
ed to their manhood, that which preceded their being Englishmen, (to 
quote an expression of my friend Phillips,) I appealed to them as men, 
and I had a right to do so. They are men, and the Slave is a man, and 
we have a right to call upon all men to assist in breaking his bonds, let 
them be born when and live where they may. 

But it is asked, 'What good will this do V or 'What good has it done?' 
'Have you not irritated, have you not annoyed your American friends 
and the American people rather than done them good V I admit that 
we have irritated them. They deserve to be irritated. I am anxious to 
irritate the American people on this question. As it is in physics, so in 
morals, there are cases which demand irritation and counter-irritation. 
The conscience of the American public needs this irritation, and I would 
blister it all over from centre to circumference, until it gives signs of a 
purer and a better life than it is now manifesting to the world. 

But why expose the sins of one nation in the eyes of another? Why 
attempt to bring one people under the odium of another people? There 
is much force in this question. I admit that there are sins in almost 
every country which can be best removed by means confined exclusively 
to their immediate locality. But such evils and such sins pre-suppose 
the existence of a moral power in their immediate locality sufficient to 
accomplish the work of renovation. But, where, pray, can we go to find 
moral power in this nation sufficient to overthrow Slavery? To what 
institution, to what party shall we apply for aid ? I say we admit that 
there are evils which can be best removed by influences confined to their 
ipimefl'Pte locality. But in regard to American Slavery it is not so. It 
-iant crime, so darkening to the soul, so blinding in its moral 
*.in * well calculated to blast and corrupt all the humane principles 

of our i " so well adapted to infuse its own accursed spirit into all 
around it, he people among whom it exists have not the moral power 



to abolish it. Shall we go to the Church for this influence? We have 
heard its character described. Shall we go to Politicians or Political 
Parties? Have they the moral power necessary to accomplish this 
mighty task? They have not. What are they doiug at this moment? 
Voting supplies for Slavery — voting supplies for the extension, the stability, 
the perpetuation of Slavery in this land. What is the press doing ? The 
same. The pulpit? Almost the same. I do not flatter myself that there 
is moral power in the land sufficient to overthrow Slavery, and I welcome 
the aid of England. And that aid will come. The growing intercourse 
beivveen England and this country, by means of steam navigation, the 
relaxation of the protective system in various countries in Europe, gives 
us an opportunity to bring in the aid, the moral and Christian aid of those 
living on the other side of the Atlantic. We welcome it in the language 
of the resolution. We entreat our British friends to continue to send 
their remonstrances across the deep against Slavery in this land. And 
these remonstrances will have a powerful effect here. Sir, the Ameri- 
cans may tell of their ability, and I have no doubt they have it, to keep 
back the invader's hosts, to repulse the strongest force that its enemies 
may send against this country. It may boast, and rightly boast of its 
capacity to build its ramparts so high that no foe can hope to scale them 
— to render them so impregnable as to defy the assaults of the world. 
But, sir, there is one thing it cannot resist, come from what quarter it 
may. It cannot resist truth. You cannot build your forts so strong, 
nor your rantpaity scThlgri, nor arm yourselves so powerfully, as to be 
able to withstand the overwhelming moral sentiment against Slavery 
now flowing into this land. For example: Prejudice against Color is 
continually becoming weaker in this land; and why? Because the 
whole European Continent denounces this sentiment as unworthy a 
lodgment in the^breast of an enlightened community. And the Ameri- 
can abroad dares not now, even in a public conveyance, to lift his voice 
in defence of this disgusting prejudice. 

I do not mean to say that there are no practices abroad which deserve 
to receive an influence, favorable to their exterminaiion, from America. 
I am most glad to know that Democratic Freedom — not the bastard 
Democracy which, while loud in its protestations of regard for Liberty 
and Equality, builds up Slavery, and, in the name of Freedom fights the 
battles of Despotism — is making great strides in Europe. We see, 
abroad, in England especially, happy indications of the progress of 
American principles. A little while ago England was cursed by a Corn 
monopoly — by that giant monopoly which snatched from the mouths of 
the famishing Poor the bread which you sent from this land. The com- 
munity — the people of England demanded its destruction, and they have 
triumphed ! We have aided them, and they aid us, and the mission of 
the two nations, henceforth, is to serve each other. 

Sir, it is said that, when abroad, I misrepresented my country on this 
question. I am not aware of any misrepresentation. I stated facts and 
facts only. A gentleman of your own City, Rev. Dr. Cox, has taken 
particular pains to stigmatize me as having introduced the subject of Sla- 
very illegitimately into the World's Temperance Convention. But what 
was the fact! I went to that Convention, not as a Delegate — I went into 
it by the invitation of a Committee of the Convention. I suppose ■ -\y^ 
of you know the circumstances, but I wish to say one word in relr 
the spirit and the principle which animated me at that meeting, 
into it at the invitation of the Committee, and spoke not only ur _ 



gent request, but, by public announcement. I stood on the platform on 
the evening referred to, and heard some eight or ten Americans address 
the 7,000 people assembled in that vast Hall. I heard them speak of the 
Temperance movement in the land. I heard them eulogize the Tem- 
perance Societies in the highest terms, calling on England to follow their 
example (and England may follow them with advantage to herself;) but 
I heard no reference made to the 3,000,000 of people in this country 
who are denied the privilege, not only of Temperance, but of all other 
Societies. I heard not a word of the American Slaves, who, if seven of 
them were found together at a Temperance meeting or any other place, 
would be scourged and beaten by their cruel tyrants. Yes, nine-and- 
thirty lashes is the penally required to be inflicted by the law if any of the 
Slaves get together in a number exceeding seven, for any purpose, how- 
ever peaceable or laudable. And while these American gentlemen were 
extending their hands to me, and saying, 'How do you do, Mr. Douglass'? 
I am most happy to meet you here,' &c. &c. I knew that, in America, 
they would not have touched me with a pair of tongues. I felt, there- 
fore, that that was the place and the time to call to remembrance the 
3,000,000 of Slaves, whom I aspired to represent on that occasion. I did 
so, not maliciously, but with a desire, only, to subserve the best interests 
of my race. I besought the American Delegates who had at first re- 
sponded to my speech with shouts of applause, when they should arrive 
at home, to extend the borders of their Temperance Societies, so as to in- 
clude the 500,000 Colored People in the Northern States of the Union. 
I also called to mind the facts in relation to the mob that occurred in the 
City of Philadelphia in the year 1S42. I stated these facts to show to 
the British public how difficult it is for a colored man in this country to 
do anything to elevate himself or his race from the slate of degradation in 
which they are plunged; how difficult it is for him to be virtuous or tem- 
perate, or anything but a menial, an outcast. You all remember the 
circumstances of the mob to which I have alluded. A number of intelli- 
gent, philanthropic, manly colored men, desirous of snatching their co- 
lored brethren from the fangs of intemperance, formed themselves into a 
procession and walked through the streets of Philadelphia with appropri- 
ate banners, and badges, and mottoes. I stated the fact that that proces- 
sion was not allowed to proceed far, in the City of Philadelphia — the 
American City of Brotherly Love, the city of all others loudest in its 
boasts of freedom and liberty — before these noble-minded men were as- 
saulted by the citizens, their banners torn in shreds and themselves tram- 
pled in the dust, and inhumanly beaten, and all their bright and fond 
hopes and anticipations in behalf of their friends and their race blasted by 
the wanton cruelty of their white fellow citizens. And all this was done 
for no other reason than that they had presumed to walk through the 
streets with Temperance banners and badges, like human beings. 

The statement of this fact caused the whole Convention to break forth 
in one general expression of intense disgust at such atrocious and inhu- 
man conduct. This disturbed the composure of some of our American 
representatives, who, in serious alarm, caught hold of the skirts of my 
coat, and attempted to make me desist from my exposition of the situa- 
tion of the colored race in this country. There was one Doctor of Di- 
here— the ugliest man that I ever saw in my life — who almost tore 
" of my coat off, so vehement was he in his friendly attempts to 
incic *° yield the floor. But fortunately the audience came to my 

resciu emanded that I should go on, and I did go on, and, I trust, 



a 



if. 



discharged my duty to my brethren in bonds and the cause of Human 
Liberty, in a manner not altogether unwoiihy the occasion. 

I have been accused of dragging the question of Slavery into the Con- 
vention. I had a right to do so. It was the World's Convention — not 
the Convention of any sect or number of sects — not the convention 
of any particular Nation — not a man's nor a woman's Convention, not 
a black man' snor a white man's Convention, but the World's Conven- 
tion, the convention of all, black as well as white, bond as well as 
free. And I stood there, as I thought, a representative of 3.000,000 of 
men whom I had left in rags and wretchedness to be devoured by the 
accursed Institution which stands by them, as with a drawn sword, ever 
ready to fall upon their devoted and defenceless heads. I felt, as I said 
to Dr. Cox, that it was demanded of me by Conscience, to speak out 
boldly in behalf of those whom I had left behind. [Cheers.] And, sir, 
(I think I may say this, without subjecting myself to the charge of egot- 
ism) I deem it very fortunate for the friends of the Slave, 'hat Mr. Garri- 
son and myself were there just at that time. Sir, the Churches in this 
country have long repined at the position of the Churches in England 
on the subject of Slavery. They have sought many opportunities to 
do away the prejudices of the English Churches against American 
Slavery. Why, sir, at this time there were not far from Seventy Min- 
isters of the Gospel from Christian America, in England, pouring 
their leprous pro-slavery^distilment into the ears of the people of that 
country, and by their prayers, their conversation and their public 
speeches, seeking to darken the British mind on the subject of Slavery, 
and to create in the English public the same cruel and heartless apathy 
that prevails in this country in relation to the Slave, his wrongs and his 
rights. I knew them by their continuous slandering of my race, and at 
this time, and under these circumstances, I deemed it a happy interposi- 
tion of God, in behalf of my oppressed, and misrepresented, and sland- 
ered people, that one of their number should be able to break his chains 
and burst up through the dark incrustations of malice and hate and degra- 
tion which had been thrown over them, and stand before the British pub- 
lic to open to them the secrets of the prison-house of bondage in America. 
[Cheers.] Sir, the Slave sends no Delegates to the Evangelical Alliance. 
[Cheers.] The Slave sends no Delegates to the World's Temperance 
Convention. Why? Because chains are upon his arms, and fetters 
fast bind his limbs. He must be driven out to be sold at auction by 
some Christian Slaveholder, and the money for which his soul is bartered 
must be appropriated to spread the Gospel among the Heathen. 

Sir, I feel it is good to be here. There is always work to be done. 
Slavery is everywhere. Slavery goes out in the Cambria and comes back 
in the Cambria. Slavery was in the Evangelical Alliance, looking saintly 
in the person of Rev. Doctor Smythe; it was in the World's Temper- 
ance Convention, in the person of Rev. Mr. Kirk. Dr. Marsh went 
about, saying, in so many words, that the unfortunate Slaveholders in 
America were so peculiarly situated, so environed by uncontrollable cir- 
cumstances that they could not liberate their slaves ; that if they were to 
emancipate them they would be, in many instances, cast into r- : ~ - 1 
Sir, it did me good to go around on the heels of this gentleman 
glad to follow him around for the sake of my country, for the c 

not, after all, so bad as Rev. Dr. Marsh represented it to be. .iow- 

countrymen, what think ye he said of you, on the other s\ he At- 

lantic ? He said you were not only pro-Slavery, but that 4 uu actually 



8 

nided the Slaveholder in holding his Slaves securely in his grasp; ihat, 
in fact, you compelled him to be a Slaveholder. This I deny. You 
are not so bad as that. You do not compel the Slaveholder to be a 
Slaveholder. 

And Rev. Doctor Oox, too, talked a great deal over there, and among 
other things, he said that ' many Slave-holders — dear Christian men ! — 
were sincerely anxious to get rid of their slaves;' and to show how diffi- 
cult it is for them to get rid of their human chattels, he put the following 
case: A man living in a State, the laws of which compel all persons 
emancipating their slaves to remove them beyond its limits, wishes to 
iioerate his slaves; but he is too poor to transport them beyond the con- 
fines of the State in which he resides ; therefore he cannot emancipate 
them — he is necessarily a slaveholder. But, sir, there was one fact, 
which I happened, fortunately, to have on hand just at that time, which 
completely neutralized this very affecting statement of the Doctor's. It 
so happens that Messrs. Gerrit Smith and Arthur Tappan have advertised 
for the especial benefit of this afflicted class of Slaveholders, that they 
have set apart the sum of $10,000, to be appropriated in aiding them to 
remove their emancipated Slaves beyond the jurisdiction of the State, 
and that the money would be forthcoming on application being made for 
it; but no such application was ever made. This shows that however 
truthful the statements of these gentlemen may be concerning the things 
of the world to come, they are lamentably reckless in their statements 
concerning things appertaining to this world. I do not mean to say that 
they would designedly tell that which is false ; but they did make the 
statements which I have ascribed to them. 

And Doct. Cox and others charge me with having stirred up warlike 
feeling while abroad. This charge, also, I deny. The whole of my ar- 
guments and the whole of my appeals, while I was abroad, were in favor 
of any thing else than war. I embraced every opportunity to propagate 
the principles of Peace while I was in Great Britain. I confess, honest- 
ly, that were I not a Peace man, were I a believer in fighting at alt, I 
shoud have gone through England, saying to Englishmen, as English- 
men, 'There are 3,000,000 of men across the Atlantic who are whipped, 
scourged, robbed of themselves, denied every privilege, denied the right 
to read the Word of the God who made them, trampled under foot, de- 
nied all the rights of human beings; go to their rescue; shoulder your 
muskets, buckle on your knapsacks, and in the invincible cause of Hu- 
man Rights and Universal Liberty, go forth, and the laurels which you 
shall win will be as fadeless and as imperishable as the eternal aspirations 
of the human soul after that Freedom which every being made after 
God's image instinctively feels is his birthright. This would have been 
my course had I been a war man. That such was not my course, I ap- 
peal to my whole career while abroad to determine. 

Weapons of war we have cast from the battle: 

Truth is our armor — our watchword is Love; 
Hushed be the sword, and the musketry's rattle, 
All our equipments are drawn from above. 
Praise then the God of Truth, 
Hoary age and ruddy youth. 
Long may our rally be 
Love, Light and Liberty; 
Ever our banner the banner of Peace." 

Mr. l ass took his seat in the midst of the most enthusiastic and 
overwhelming applause in which the whole of the vast assembly appeared 
heartily to join. 



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